To the Daily:
University President Lee Bollinger set an incredible precedent for his presidency last Thursday. Apparently, one no longer needs merely to request an appointment. Now all one has to do is engage in physical intimidation and the president will be gla d to see you.
Not only did Bollinger capitulate to a group of gate-crashing thugs, he gave their tactics his moral sanction by calling their shouting and intimidation an exercise of first amendment rights and implying that drowning out his speech was an example o f idealism. The only conclusion one can draw is that bully tactics are OK if one feels that "justice" is on your side.
Of course, any group that advocates physical force as a legitimate means to an end loses any tenuous claim to justice it might have had. And the claim LUCha has is nonexistent. What kind of diversity could possibly be fostered by shouting down someo ne who might say something contrary to one's liking? On the one hand, we need to be "diverse." On the other hand, if you disagree, or agree but do not act quickly enough, LUCha harasses you. LUCha's actions expose the hypocrisy of multiculturalism, which only allows one to speak a different language and dance a different step, but not, apparently, to have diverse opinions on the righteousness of multiculturalism.
If one wishes to deny the use of physical force a moral sanction, then one must consistently advocate the use of reason and persuasion. Reason and force cannot coexist. LUCha has shown which means it chooses to further its ends. The administration has agreed wholeheartedly. I, however, do not.
Bradley Malestein
LSA junior
To begin with, Miller wants to place Gingrich in a bad light by blowing up the number of scandals he has faced. Miller wrote that Gingrich endured "questions surrounding his history class, then a fat fine from the ethics committee." The fine from th e ethics committee was in fact due to a filing error from money garnished from his class. That is right, a filing error, not Gingrich's refusal to pay the taxes. This same error was committed by Richard Gephardt (D-Missouri), when he was majority le ader under the Democratic-run Congress. However, when this same mistake was discovered in Gephardt's forms, the ethics committee did not fine him. His punishment was to redo the forms correctly and then resubmit them. If Gingrich's fine was a punish ment, it was for him being a Republican, not for misfiling his tax forms.
Miller also states that Gingrich "engender(s) himself to his bloated, greedy constituency." This is a blatant lie. Gingrich's constituency consists of a rather small district in Georgia, far from the homes of the bloated and greedy.
Finally, Miller was sucked into the biased view of Gingrich's tax-cut comment. What Gingrich actually said was that the Democrats disagree with the Republican balanced budget because of the tax cut involved. So to better America and get this balance d budget passed, we will take it out. Now, the Democrats cannot complain. Then, Gingrich went on to say that the tax cut will be introduced as a separate bill. The tax cut is still there, it is just not in the budget.
Finally, Miller states that Republicans believe that their money is, "mine, mine, mine." I will not disagree with him there. I work hard for my money and it is mine. However, he also thinks, because we believe this, that we do not care about Ameri ca. This is far from the truth. Republicans believe in helping the disadvantaged, but they believe it is the individual's job to do this, not the government's. Maybe if Miller was unbiased, he would get more of the facts straight.
Patrick Elkins
LSA first-year student
What he neglected to include was how many people it is hurting. Let us take the patients. They are receiving less than they deserve in care and caring. The employees now have no morale and are wondering if they will have a job in the coming months. If you are wondering about if you are going to have a job to support your own family, you will not care that much about taking care of anyone else. Sure the hospital is making money, but at what cost?
James Yates
Former University Medical Center employee
Unfortunately, the most important document guaranteeing our freedoms does not include any provisions for taste or tactfulness in protesting.
Last Thursday, at the reception with University President Lee Bollinger for leaders of various campus student groups, a terrible display of activism occurred. A group known as LUCha stormed the reception, purposefully ruining the reception and at th e same time possibly alienating their cause in the name of protest. LUCha's militaristic tactics should not be encouraged or be accepted as normal means of communication.
LUCha disrupted the reception to the point that President Bollinger could not deliver any normal address to the student leaders, nor meet many of them face to face. They ambushed the reception by throwing grapes all over the place. In a clearly pat hetic tactic, LUCha cornered Bollinger with their incessant chants. They literally forced former MSA President Fiona Rose to attempt to mediate the ambush and put Bollinger on the mike.
As a true leader, Bollinger attempted to appease the protesters by "guaranteeing" a meeting. However, that was not good enough for them. They immediately demanded to know "when and where."
I hope that Bollinger keeps his word and holds a meeting with these thugs who hijacked and ruined something that had the potential to benefit everyone at the University. I hope he treats them with the respect they deserve, which is very little. We cannot allow militant groups to continually get their way be making the lives of others miserable. That is not what protests are supposed to be about. Protests should be able to get your message across without alienating the rest of the University i n the process.
Society crumbles when it lets minority pressure groups to continue to get their way by using such immature tactics. If LUCha is successful in all their goals, who is to stop groups like NWROC and other groups from disrupting everything from MSA meet ings to class lectures in the name of whatever they are protesting?
The ideals and changes LUCha is fighting for could be valid. They do deserve to be looked at. But I can't help but feel negatively toward them just for the very fact that they denied student group leaders a great opportunity to meeting our president .
David Taub
LSA first-year student